LIFE AFTER | ❝death doesn't discriminate, between the sinners and the saints, it just takes and takes.❞
( 9-1-1 x OC )
stand alone.
started ; 7 Sept. 2019
rewritten ; 5 May 2023
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It's an anger that consumed Bobby Nash - he doesn't remember a time where he's been angrier, and it strikes him the hardest when he glances upon the blank expression of his daughter. He doesn't like it; the expression that she wore, and he knew she was thinking of her mother and younger siblings. It was cruel, and Bobby knew that as well. Whenever she remembered the funerals of her family, he wished for nothing more than for her to hate him, to yell at him and let all hell loose upon him.
He deserved it, and he, wholeheartedly, believed it.
It's all worse than it ever had been before, even despite his sobriety. He was working close to six months of being sober . . . but it didn't seem like enough to anyone, everyone still treated him the same from when he was an addict, except his daughter.
He knew that she heard the argument he had with her grandparents, on his wife's side of the family. They didn't believe that the sobriety was enough, they were worried about Delilah's welfare, which he couldn't fault them. It just wasn't fair. He had already lost the love of his life, and his two youngest children. Bobby couldn't survive if someone took Delilah away . . . little did she know, but his daughter was the one thing that kept him fighting for a new day.
It was too quiet in the apartment, almost deafening silent, and that's how Bobby knew that Delilah heard the argument. Her grandparents had even made comments in front of her, on numerous occasions in the past . . . much to Bobby's disappointment.
"Sweetheart," he finally broke the silence that filled the air around them, and he almost had the heart to smile just a little when she looked up at him. "Wanna do a pizza for dinner?"
Delilah shrugged softly, "Sure. Supreme?"
It was always hopeless to think that he would cook for dinner - he hadn't since the night their family was taken from them.
Bobby nodded, "Sure thing, baby."
He stepped away, back towards the kitchen where his phone laid discarded on the counter. With the silence that encapsulated them once more, Delilah found her chance to escape back into her bedroom.
It was more empty than the bedroom she had back at the old apartments. There was no bunkbed on the other side of the wall. There were no toys thrown across the floor. There were no little crayon marks on the wall. There was no little Robert, and there was no Brooke to continually annoy her; not anymore.
It just felt empty, except for the bed, dresser filled with donated clothes, and a feeble attempt to fill the walls with the photos that she had left.
It was an eerie thought; just how full life had been, only to be empty and desolate in the next moment. Delilah thought it cruel, unfair. What did she do deserve the loss of her mother, her sister and her brother?
In all actuality, Delilah knew that the universe wasn't that cruel, nor God. She knew that bad things just happened sometimes . . . she had learned that from her dad and the things that he had seen on the job.
Delilah looked up to the wall, where a lone photo was pinned to the drywall. She smiled softly, tears gathered in her waterline. She never got to experience that day, having occurred before her own birth, but it was still her favorite photograph of her parents - on their wedding day when they were young, her father dressed in a suit that might have been slightly too large for his frame, and her mother in a thrifted wedding dress.
She used to dream of her own wedding day, but frankly, that was the least of her worries these days.
"I miss you, mama. Daddy does too."
a/n → welcome to the rewrite of Life After!! I missed Delilah so much, and I know some of y'all have too. I'm ready to bring her back, and watch her grow into an amazing human 🥺 anyway, glad to see you all back too ❤️
